Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Pissin' Streams with Thomas Maguire.

Pissing Streams (10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) by Thomas Patrick Maguire
New York-based singer-songwriter Thomas Patrick Maguire is celebrating the 10th anniversary (good lord, 2004) of his album Pissing Streams, for which his voice and outlook have drawn genuine comparison to Elliott Smith and Kurt Cobain, and surprisingly, these aren't contexts that I would consider out of his league. On Pissing Streams, his voice had the same dreary murmur that Cobain once mumbled, and while his follow-up albums don't necessarily have the same special grunginess or rawness that Pissing Streams had, I surprised myself by hearing a bit of Smith's "Speed Trials" right off the bat on 2012's No Suppression, Gentleman Drunk, though certainly much moreso in Maguire's guitar style than his singing, which has softened over the last ten years.

Maguire just put out a short documentary about the recording and release of Pissing Streams, and while I was first tempted to lump him in with outcast anti-folk artists like Jeffrey Lewis, I'm surprised to see Maguire and learn that he's got a slight New York accent and looks something like a friendly son of Ray Liotta, clean cut, boyish, looking nothing like the cynical mess I'd have expected. Pissing Streams is enjoyable and holds up well, but it's meant to be listened to while alone.